ودع أمامة حان منك رحيل — Jarir

Bid Umama farewell; the time has come for you to leave.

A farewell to the beloved is all too brief.

They have enthralled those thirsting hearts,

and I see the cure, but there is no path to it.

I have spared no effort in seeking your favor,

if only whoever possesses favor would bestow it.

If coyness is your way, then

your coyness, Umaym, is lovely and fair.

The reproaching women said, "Your love for her has made you foolish."

No; whoever blames me for loving you is foolish.

Like a dune's ridge of sand whose flanks have crumbled,

while the wind mends its back and scatters it.

As for the heart, it never forgets your remembrance

as long as a dove calls among the arak trees.

Your campsite's traces remain, Umaym, despite decay,

as no other traces have ever remained.

The south and north winds have woven their outlines,

and a rushing east wind with rumbling clouds.

Do your people stay at al-Sitar, while upward have gone

laden camels between al-Wariqa and al-Maqad?

One like you was not to be carried away by a glance

the day the mounts were saddled for a distant journey.

May that companionship never perish! Since they left, changed is

a desolate campsite on the stony ground of Ramatayn.

Indeed, you would be happy whenever you settled there,

in the days when your people dwelt in those abodes.

Indeed, the dwellings favored us, and our life—

if only that had lasted—was shaded by all we loved.

May a thunderous cloud water your abodes, wherever you are,

rumbling, with a downpour from the brightest clouds.

It is as though my night, from remembering love,

were a night joined to the longest of nights.

Does your night sleep, Umaym, while sleepless is

the night of the mounts, whose gait is a steady trot?

Sufficient for you, when cares come by night and deny you sleep, are

young she-camels, pregnant and barren, lean as bows.

Noble camels of the purest ancient stock, their lineage raised

above other thoroughbreds by Shadqam and Jadil.

Their withers withstood the rubbing, after

the last stored moisture had gone, leaving none within them.

Like spear shafts whose backs the straightening-tool has scraped,

then they quiver, supple and dry.

They race onward when you see a desert landmark

in the mirage, now shortening, now lengthening.

And when the shadows shorten, they speed along

with the stride of ostriches, their girth-straps hanging slack.

Each tall, true-framed beast, as though it were

a long-hulled ship, sail aloft, sweeping onward.

How many a vast expanse they have crossed to reach you,

barren of resting places, with nothing to sustain them,

its watering places distant, its landmarks effaced,

empty of living figures, where one could almost spend a year.

God has invested you with the caliphate and guidance,

and what God has decreed cannot be changed.

The caliphate, by virtue of the service you have rendered,

is among you; its sovereignty cannot be transferred.

He towers above the council when its members are distressed

by a grave affair that constricts men's hearts.

Those worthy of it hold the caliphate and honor;

so sovereignty is spacious and bounty abundant.

So you must exact the poll tax from a people who never bore witness

to God that Muhammad is indeed a messenger.

They followed error, turning away from guidance,

and the Taghlibi is blind of heart, far astray.

The Book passes judgment on the cross and Taghlib,

and every revealed verse has its interpretation.

The caliphate, prophethood, and guidance

are a lasting humiliation for Taghlib throughout life.

You have abandoned the paths of prophethood, so submit

to the caliph's tribute; the abased remain abased.

Al-Ukhaytil is barred from rivaling our chief

by clipped nobility and shorn withers.

A radiant, untamed chief of Zayd Manat,

so Zayd Manat charges when he charges.

We have horsemen whose equals you will never bring,

and a lofty, towering edifice of honor.

When you speak of al-Hudhayl, who once wintered

among us—al-Hudhayl, with fetters on his limbs—

the caliph advanced with his armies, while you were

routed remnants between al-Salawtah and the Euphrates.

The cavalry of Qays has indeed soothed my anger against you;

among them are al-Hudhayl, Malik, and Aqil.

If you are assailed by Qays in war, there will remain

forever a guide to lead their cavalry against you.

Excellent defenders, when the sword-blades are unsheathed:

the helmets clang beneath their cutting edges.

If their host, on the morning of Mukhashin,

were hurled against Hadan, it would almost move.

But for the caliph, Ukhaytil, there would have been no escape

for your devoured carcass in the days by the Tigris.

Qays surpasses Rabi'a in numbers,

and Khindif's mountains add still more besides.

Al-Ukhaytil has lied: the women of Taghlib have no

defender of their honor, and no husband feels jealousy.

The horsemen of Sulaym left women

frantic, with cries of grief at al-Rahub.

When he kept imagining every figure a horseman,

and saw an ostrich in his shadow and veered away.

Your women danced at Ajinat al-Rahub,

the dance of ostrich chicks, with no trailing hems.

Where were the Araqim when their women were dragged away

on the day of al-Rahub by Muharib and Salul?

The cloaks were stripped away, and the smell of Taghlib's women

was lentils rumbling in their bellies, and broad beans.

And when the head of an old gray camel arrives

in the bowels, along with soaked chickpeas,

she cries, "O men of Muharib!" while she is restrained

by a body whose girdle seems undone.

Their sons are the least respected of any people

at drinking bouts, and the women have no sense.

Al-Ukhaytil was foolish, shielding with his old mother

the smiths' bellows, as though it were a handkerchief.

There was, in the corpses burned beside the Tigris,

or in those at al-Rahub, enough to keep you occupied.

And the vultures foraging upon them seemed

like pilgrims encamped at the lower end of Dhu al-Majaz.

You destroyed your people by stirring hostility against them,

then held back, though the enemy still nursed blood-feuds.

May you be disgraced, unavenged, a seeker of a dung-stained campsite,

at al-Hadr, now drinking, now urinating.

Tell al-Ukhaytil: your old mother bore no noble offspring

among mothers, nor is your father a virile sire.

Your hands fell short of noble deeds, and often

a ghoul carried your father away from honorable acts.

Delegations arrive, while Taghlib is banished

behind the pack camels, with shoulders drooping.

He is called, when they dismount, to take his provisions,

and told, "You seem bound for ruin."

So gather their fastening pegs beside their pack saddles,

and leave; you have no noonday resting place among the baggage.

One of those gray-haired men who never cease serving for hire,

as long as a camel calf sniffs the teat-binding peg.

Al-Ukhaytil's share from seeking bribes

is a deep head-wound, its skull-bones gleaming.